Lebanese spam seems quiet lately... Most of them stopped... The return on investment is very bad i guess... And some of us spent so much time attacking them, calling ISP and clients... So the "stupid" clients and the "stupid" ISP are harder to find now... They are getting smarter or better informed...

(1) One source of Lebanese spam is still "working", but they took a server a in China. Using more or less the same "cheap" techniques used for cybercriminals and dangerous scammers, as well as illegal software offers, penis enlargement, viagra & sex pills etc.

(2) Also, the 1st Lebanon Group, who have specialized in (very heavy and abusive) search engine optimization and extremely vulgar e-marketing... are now spamming! They call it "bizmail"... And they send it through France [wanadoo, IP: 90.0.1.28]. Their domains are: firstnetlb.com, 1stbusinesslebanon.com. They are hosted by Alabanza in the US (they are Alabanza web hosting resellers).

If you receive spam from Lebanese sources, please post a message here or contact the site admins directly.

IDM not only spams e-mails but hacks systems also! (I HAVE posted a new TOPIC about their hackers)....
i do not have an e-mail address related to IDM anyway....but why bother get an IDM e-mail address when u could get a free SECURE hotmail or yahoo e-mail ?

Rami El-Zein (whom Murex reported earlier in this thread) has contacted us directly a few days ago to clarify things. He was very cool, professional and not a spammer himself, and not really aware of the details: his company is hosting the main websites of EADINT, the spammers...

So Hayssam Mokammal is just one of his web hosting client and they are not "partners" in any way... Rami was just 'tolerating' it, I suppose... as long as the guy wasn't using his company's SMTP, it was OK... (the spammer always used a remote SMTP, he only kept his websites on hostrix's server)

Rami promised that the following domain names will be removed from his company's servers and from his company's registrar account:

A group of hardcore Lebanese spammers are seriously active these days... The PIGS call themselves "Silhouette"... but in reality they are BANNERSGROUP.COM

I think they use Chinese SMTP's... To stay anonymous and cross (basic) spam filters, they host the content of their spams as "images only" on remote free photo gallery websites such as: photobucket.com or tinypic.com

Their main website is hosted by: IXWEBHOSTING.COM
(a cheap and not so good US host)

The domain is under the name of Oussama Awad.

I'll be posting more info about them very soon...

.........

ANOTHER SPAMMER:
1stbusinesslebanon.com
They call their SPAM service "bizmail"...
Removal email address:
remove@1stbusinesslebanon.com(but these pigs are not as active and as evil as the first pigs above)

..........

Last edited by admin on Mon Jul 03, 2006 1:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

IP = 216.147.45.110
It is hosted by Netways.com (Lebanon) who are Alabanza.com (USA) resellers. They don't send the spam through Netways's SMTP, only the domains is registered by Netways & the site is hosted there.

..........

This is what they say on the home page of their site... It is absolutely DISCUSTING, and totally illegal by the way...

Welcome to Silhouette!

Silhouette is proudly a Lebanese establishment [WHAT THE FUCK?! OF COURSE THEY ARE HAPPY TO BE LEBANESE... IF THEY WERE IN THE US OR EUROPE, THESE GUYS WOULD BE IN JAIL] located in Beirut - Lebanon. It provides professional [euh?] Bulk e-mail [This means 100% SPAM] and SMS services for all kinds of uses [ALL KIND OF USES?! WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?]. Throughout the past decade, Silhouette accomplished dramatic [THEY ARE VERY NEW, AND IT IS PORBABLY JUST ONE GUY, THEY PRETEND TO BE MANY AND TO HAVE A PAST] expansion where it extended its services to Internet Advertisement, Web development… (Other lists)

Silhouette has gained a remarkable strength through its spread over the Globe. It acquired several servers in various locations in the World like Chicago, Thailand, Philippine… in order to boost up fast communication with in the stunning growth World. [NO BODY NEEDS SERVERS "ALL OVER THE WORLD" TO BOOST THINGS!... THESE GUYS JUST RENT CHEAP HOSTING ACCOUNTS FOR A FEW $ PER MONTH JUST FOR SPAM... THE ONLY REASON IS TO SPAM FROM COUNTRIES WHERE THE ANTI-SPAM LAWS ARE NOT EASY TO APPLY!]

Mission Statement:Our mission at Silhouette is to deliver extravagant [WHAT DOES THAT MEAN!?] technological marketing services that guarantee close communications and reliable feed backs among the firm customer relation. Silhouette aims to keep your target market updated [UPDATED TO WHAT?... TO BE UPDATED IS => TO USE OTHER WAYS THAN SPAM TO ADVERTISE ON THE WEB!] at competitive rates!

The main opportunity of Silhouette is the extensive experience of its staff that assist you in shaping out your marketing iceberg! And with the customer care service, we seek to maintain an effective follow up that answers your concerns and enhances your satisfaction.

Why email? [NOT EMAIL, BUT SPAM, 100% UNSOLLICITED, FAKE REPLY ADDRESSES, ANONYMOUS SERVERS IN CHINA, etc.]Emails have proven to be among the most effective marketing tools throughout our digital world. They provide convenient, easy to use, private, interactive and immediate services. Such features enhance the customer relationship building and flexibility. Similar to the website, an email should satisfy the 7 C’s in order to be effective, reliant, and satisfying the AIDA(1) model. The 7 C’s are:

î Context - layout and design. î Content - text, pictures, sound… should be in harmony. î Community - the means that facilitate user to user communication. î Customization - the ability to fit itself to different users. î Communication - the ways it enables two way communication. î Connection - the degree to which it assesses other links. î Commerce - the capability to enable commercial transaction (satisfying the communicator’s views).

Through the 7 C’s, the target audience will heavily affect the communicator decisions on what will be said, how it will be said, when it will be said, where it will be said, and who will say it.

At Silhouette, we emphasize the importance of socially responsible marketing around the globe [WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY TAKLING ABOUT?!]. Emails are to fortify such responsibilities![THIS IS A VERY VERY VERY HIGH DEGREE OF CYNISM!]

Why SMS?The SMS service has made a hit in the personal communication channels. With the very few number of characters provided, the effective SMS is able to create a great sense of awareness that is efficient and effective enough to move the targeted customer through other stages among the buyer readiness process(2).

In my opinion, doing and saying what they're doing and saying in 2006, is completly crazy! Guys who speak like that should be seriously prosecuted... They are pure evil because they know exactly what they are doing, and they are still doing it... Professionaly and coldly. They lie to their clients too, since most users don't even see the advertising messages because updated mail softares are most often set by default to block all remote images.

Born in 1963. That means he is about 43 y. o. That's pretty old for a SPAMMER. I guess he works alone, because the graphics on his site are terrible and it's obvious they are made by the same clumsy geek.

My Brothers and Sisters;Alharam Club will be recognized as a relevant and respected Fraternity, committed to attracting and retaining all men and women of high quality who strive for self improvement and the opportunity to make a positive difference in their community.

WHAT + THE + FUCK !?!

This is chocking... This guy has been arround for a long time with his Lebanese Freemasons web site... Registering it in most directories... I did not know freemasons were so greedy and "unethical", creating pure bullshit and fooling their clients...

If you're a webmaster and have a link to his site, please remove it, so his Google page rank drops...

Alharam Lodge #1 is a Blue Lodge or Craft Lodge of Ancient, Free and Accepted Masons

It looks as if he created his own mansonic lodge and declared himself grand master... This guy is a freek... His site is empty... It's just a buch of chat rooms and 3 "masonic jokes"... It has very little to do with Freemasonery.

He has a masonic online shop with stupid jewelery where he says that if you buy it will be given as a "donation". And when you click on donation, he says it's a donation to HIM for the website.

He is a complete newbie. His graphic design is scary. He is speads conspiration theories and superstition. Here is an archived copy of a page of his sites where he spread stupid coincidences about the 911 tragedy and Nostradamus bulllshit... Probably as a way to get some easy search engin traffic to his new site at the time where these themes where VERY hot:
http://web.archive.org/web/200212071242 ... /main.html

This thing called THAI CLINIC who spams though "silhouette".... It is COMPLETLY tied to Silhouette... They are their best clients... Or they spam for free... That explains why they spam so often! Sometimes 3 times a day...

medialeb.com specializes in a big list of web marketing services. Their mailing services are introduced like this:

Broadcast Email,Opt-in:Using carefully targeted lists or opt in lists where the recipient has asked to receive information on a particular subject you can achieve excellent response rates which are way above conventional direct mail levels. Medialeb will establish a mailing system to send your newsletter on basis that you choose (monthly, bi-monthly or weekly).

The thing is I'm receiving their mails without having EVER, EVER asked to receive ANYTHING from them.

The address I receive their junk is my old idm mail. Mmmh. Weird. Would IDM actually SELL their mail database without asking people's permission?

This is completly NUTS... Not only they used Medialeb... But Terranet just advertised (triple email 3 times a day) through EADINT! The peace of human shit called Hayssam Mokammal is alive and quicking... Someone shoot his face - with a creamy cake... - PLEASE.

Terranet, a serious Lebanese ISP "until further notice", decided to launch a blind massive 100% SPAM campaign to advertise for... their new ANTI-SPAM product!!! What the hell is this suppose to be??? What the fuck is going on at Terranet? Is this a very high degree of cynism...? Or a BIT FAT serious mistake... Terranet always showed a perfect anti-spam attitude... That is completly nuts...! We're inquiring HARD...

One of our forum members contacted the spammer Joe Haddad a few days ago. He did not really mean to. We was calling Thai Clinic, to try to convince them to stop spamming and they forwarded the call to Joe Haddad (it is probably his business or maybe he just works there). The guy denied everything and played it as if he didn't know what was Silhouette (the name of his spam business) and so on.

This morning, Joe Haddad called our forum member back. He insulted him and treatened him physically, repeating hysterically: "you don't know who I am!"...

This has just been reported to our lawyer, and he said that we shouldn't do anything for the moment. (Man, if the dude calls you back, please let us know as soon as possible!)

Last edited by admin on Mon Jul 10, 2006 1:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

Just to confirm here that Joe Haddad is a DIRTY LITTLE RAT. He called me back to insult and threatened me. I told him to come now, so I can show him what I can do for him He got nervous and said "yes i will come now" I wish spammers started to attack me physically! It would be so much easier to fight spam! At last, I'd have the perfect 100% LEGAL reason to litteraly smash faces

This Joe Haddad guy is the worst type of SPAMMER. He spams EVERY DAY for his Thai Clinic beauty "services"... I think he will never stop unless he dies, and unfortunately he is only 43. From his profile it is easy to tell that even if an anti-spam laws come out in Lebanon, he'll try to continue his shit as much as he can (his SMTP server is China like most cybercriminals & viagra spammers).

His Thai Clinic - his personal business located in Sassine, Ashrafieh - sounds like some kind of whore house... and he lives & works there, watching over the girls, the money, and the spam... He represents the archetype of the cheap thirld world pimp.

Last but not least, Joe Haddad pretends to be a "freemason" and runs the site alharamclub.com. If he really belongs to some kind of Freemason fraternity, someone should inform them as soon as possible, so they know what kind of guy he really is.

I say peace and love... Even for pimps... You know there are cheap pimps in every corner of the world! It's like drug dealers. They are here because local businesses pay them for the stuff. The only way to go is to educated the businesses. And even better in fact, to educate the consumers: that means the Lebanese people in general. Because the only way to educate a profitable businesses is the educated its clients!

When people don't like to receive spam, they filter it, and do not even see it. In "internet aware" countries, if someone gets a spam, the reaction is ALWAYS negative. It has not always been like that, but in 2006, it is true that a spam always has the opposite effect. It has been prooved that the brand that is spamvertised automatically looses popularity instead!

For a "noble product", it is well known now that "unsolicited emails" - even if they are presented very nicely - have a strong counter-advertising effect. The only spam that still works these days, are regional little businesses (often half-legal), or real scams or illegal products: viagra and sex pills, penis enlargement, fake lotteries, serious financial scams etc.

That's why you'll NEVER receive a spam from a REPUTABLE BRAND. And Lebanese spam will always be limited to Lebano-lebanese little businesses who do not care about their international reputation. I suppose because the country is very late internet-wise, the Lebanese people are not very used to "internet ethics". But when the targeted people (not clients or spammers) stop responding to the spams and start filtering their mails properly, the local businesses can only realize that they are loosing their money. That's when they stop asking for it, and it disappears alone!

After all, instead of wasting time smashing cockroaches (and cleaning their discusting guts on your floor), it is MUCH smarter to keep a clean kitchen so they don't come. And if other people in your building do the same, then you have a clean building without ever having to smash anything.

Here are a few quotes of how Joe Haddad presents this own spam service (I kept his English mistakes):

Dear Sirs,

Allow us to give a brief profile of our establishment:

We, a Lebanese establishment (ten years good standing), located in Beirut-Lebanon.

We provide a legal [?] professional international Bulk e-mail & SMS services to individuals and companies all over the world.

For both services we owned our servers in (Chicago, Thailand, Philippine) and daily updated databases. [in reality: just one Chinese account on a server]

- We are proud [!?] to be the largest advertiser via e-mail among the Arab Countries & Gulf.

- We'll give you a cheaper rate for SMS messages worldwide.

By continuously driving new & existing customers to your Web page, you help keep potential customers informed of your products and services, as well as keep buying customers coming back to you again. . . and again. . . and again.

Do you have Offer / Message / Mail / Invitation / etc., to distribute? We have our own way to send it to you via email for: [price list]

My favorite sentence is "WE HAVE OUR OWN WAY TO SEND IT TO YOU VIA EMAIL" And there are a few funny words such as: "legal"... "proudly" etc.

What he is doing in not "legal in Lebanon". Actually, it's totally illegal on a World Wide Web point of view. anywhere you are! Being in Lebanon is just a way of hiding in a lawless country where it's hard to be prosecuded. And cybercriminals like Joe Haddad know this better then eveyone, that's why he like to repeat that he is based in Lebanon and that he is l"legal". But according to international laws, he is NOT legal at all. In a Bushian language, one can say that the Republic of Lebanon is "harboring spammers", a bit like Nigeria... The Republic of Lebanon is not a reliable entity. It's a stubborn Stalinized or Syrianized Thirld World machine. NO WONDER THAT PAYPAL doesn't include Lebanon is their country list.

"Opt-in", means that people decided to subscribe. But it is not true. Joe Haddad stole all the email addresses with a spider software , like all spammers do.

Although this guy sucks, his spams never cross any spam filter. So I never see them. And I suppose nobody sees them, unless they have an old computer that has never been updated for a few years. It's a complete waist of money for his clients. At the end of the day, the businesses who payed for this SPAM service are the only ones really scammed in the story. And they probably diserve to be scammed because of their ignorance of how the web works

I called Terranet almost the next day. They transfered me to Wassim Abou Rjaily. I told him: "Shou? You are spamming like crazy for your new anti-spam filter, don't you find that a bit ironic?"... Mr. Wassim Abou Rjaily said that yes they sent this "spam", and that if I knew of better "companies" who do the same thing (email advertising) but that are "cleaner", I should email him their names... I told him I'll see. And he sent me his email address.

I sent at least 2 emails to Wassim Abu Rjaily and to all public emails at Terranet. I told him/them that all of us here were very pissed off, because by showing the bad example, they will encourage other businesses to spam also... And it spoils all our little anti-spam efforts here... Terranet are one of the main Lebanon Internet Providers for God's sake! They are suppose to act as a model on the Web! They never ever replied...

I think this SPAM they did can't be a mistake otherwise they'd have replied right away. And at the same time it is almost unbelievable... It was obvious Wassim Abou Rjaily decided to spam, he just wanted the crime to be done as clean as possible... In this forum, we've always said good things about Terranet. Their people used to respond very well to spam alerts. So what happened? Why did they decide to do that? Again, if it was a mistake, then another department would have replied to us right aways with details about this affair. We contacted all emails at Terranet and no one dared to reply anything.

HEY, ALL SPAMMERS & CYBERCRIMINALS OF THE WORLD, COME TO LEBANON! YOU WILL BE HAPPY HERE! (THE FOOD IS NICER THAN IN NIGERIA.)

Just for the records. Here is the quick profile of Mr. Wassim Abou Rjaily. Terranet forwarded me to him when I called because he was in charge of ordering the spam and he sounded very aware of what he did:

Wassim Georges Abou Rjeili (Abou Rjaily) was born on September 16, 1975. Although is born Orthodox, he is the main coordinator for the International Young Catholic Students (Middle-East section). He seems like a very cool person. Modern. Anti-racist. Anti-drugs. Used to be in Zahlé, now in Ashrafieh.

This guy presents himself as a "Sales Engineer". WHAT DOES THAT MEAN? Please someone tell me if you know what this means! On his signature it says: "Network Engineer" and then "Sales Department". Frankly I don't get it... What kind of networks does he "engineer" inside the Sales Department...? Maybe this terminology is just another way to say he's some kind of MARKETING SALES EMPLOYEE.

WHAT EVER THIS BOY IS QUALIFIED FOR. I BEG HIM TO SPEND SOME TIME TO COMPLETE HIS FORMATION AND LEARN HOW TO ADVERTISE ONLINE ACCORDING THE BASIC MINIMUM DECENCY... PLEASE MAN, TRY TO GO WORK ABROAD FOR A FEW MONTH AND LEARN THE RULES.

And what about Terranet? Well, they confirmed that Wassim Abou Rjaily did the good thing and they don't feel that SPAMMING is a mistake at all!

And what about Lebanon Internet users? Well, who wants to use the services of an Internet company who sends spam to advertise its new anti-spam filter? As a very wise person said in this forum: "All Lebanese ISP are Trash". It should be written on the first pages of all tourist guides to Lebanon...